The French woman who received the world's first partial face transplant walked along a street in Lyon, France, and visited a bar without incident on Sunday, her doctors said in an interview here on Tuesday.
She was accompanied by a psychiatrist on her outing.
No one recognized anything unusual during this venture or an earlier one in Amiens, though the woman, who for the time being cannot use makeup, bears long thin scars where her new face was attached with several hundred stitches. The doctors showed pictures of the woman as they spoke in an interview the day before they were scheduled to present her case for the first time at a scientific meeting.
The trip to downtown Lyon was part of a process the doctors have organized to help the woman, identified as Isabelle Dinoire, 38, prepare to re-enter society as the world's first person to wear a transplanted face.
One goal is to help Dinoire anticipate and react to what friends and other people might say about her new appearance and to adjust to eventual exposure to hordes of photographers and journalists, said Bernard Devauchelle, the surgeon who performed the transplant operation in Amiens with Jean-Michel Dubernard, also a leader of the transplant team, assisting.
Two days after the operation Dinoire was transferred to the Edouard Herriot Hospital in Lyon where Dubernard and a team of immunologists could monitor her course. Dubernard led the team that performed the first hand-arm transplant in Lyon.
Before Sunday's visit, Dinoire had walked around the hospital, often wearing a mask until she took it off two weeks ago. On a brief visit to Amiens last week, Dinoire stopped to shop, and she was very pleased no one recognized her or saw anything unusual, Devauchelle said.
"If she wasn't the first face transplant patient, she would be at home now," Devauchelle said. He added, "there is no medical reason to keep her in the hospital now except to prepare her for the publicity and psychological reaction."
But Dinoire is not ready to live alone at home, where journalists await her, the doctors said.
As the doctors showed slides of Dinoire's disfigured face before the transplant, Benoit Lengele, a Belgian specialist in facial injuries who was part of the transplant team, said that she told them that when she looked in the mirror, her face resembled that of a dead person.
To monitor Dinoire's progress in gaining new sensation in the transplanted face, the doctors said they were obtaining MRI scans to pick up subtle changes in brain activity as they prick her skin with a pin or touch it with a wad of cotton. An MRI test on Sunday showed that Dinoire was beginning to gain some sensitivity in her new upper lip.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese